SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
A while back
I was tested for allergies. It’s something that needles me still, in each arm,
once a week. During the follow-up meeting, the ear, nose, and throat doctor
informed me that my ears were clogged, my nose stuffed, and my throat raw. He
also asked how I’d been sleeping.
“How should
I know?” I asked him. “I was asleep.”
“He doesn’t
sleep very well,” my wife put in. “He’s terrible at it. No talent for sleeping
at all. However, he snores in the cutest little accents.”
So the doc
ordered a sleep study. Thanks, dear.
In her
defense, apparently the old trick of rolling me over to stop the snoring no
longer worked. Stuffing a pillow down my throat also had its drawbacks. To make
matters worse, the ENT had discovered I have something called a deviated
septum.
Many of us
have that moment when we realize we’re not the heroes of our own stories, but
rather the sidekicks, or some other supporting roll. I’m that nerd kid everyone
bullied and made fun of, with the glasses, allergies, and yes, deviated septum.
I’m one inhaler away from being the star of a Revenge of the Nerds remake.
The doc
explained that a device would be placed over my head, and I’d have to keep it
on while I slept. Also, that device was worth five thousand dollars, so be
careful with it.
“Thanks,
doc. I’ll sleep well, with enough electronics on me to pay off my car.”
“If it helps,”
he suggested, “your wife can stuff a pillow down your throat until you start
snoring.”
The device
was both lighter and smaller than previous designs, if you can call having a Volkswagen
strapped to your face smaller. At least it wasn’t a ’57 Chevy.
The strap
adjusted to me like a baseball cap, and there were two adhesive suction cups
that stuck it to my forehead. The testing package on the front was roughly the
same size and shape as one of those huge knots the Coyote gets on his head
after his Acme anvil malfunctions and hits him, instead of the Road Runner.
That’s entertainment.
Then a
nasal cannula went on – that’s two little plastic tubes that stick into your
nose. Then, when ready for bed, I had to turn it on and wait for it to do some
little computer testing stuff. Finally a female voice spoke (not my wife). The
electronic voice was probably meant to be soothing, but it sounded more like a
nun wielding a yardstick in a Catholic school, announcing the spankings were
about to commence:
“You may go
to sleep NOW.”
Yeah, sure,
I’ll get right on that. Nothing says sleep like a 5K computer that could start
the robot apocalypse, strapped to your forehead.
Miraculously,
I did indeed get to sleep. Eventually. And that’s when I learned something new:
My forehead sweats when I sleep. When that happens, adhesives glued to my
forehead may come loose. (How was I to know that? I don’t glue stuff to my
forehead. Okay, once.) When that happens, the whole sleep
testing computer
thingy may come loose.
And when that
happens, the computer knows.
It’s safe
to say I was sleeping soundly by then. Or maybe not – again, how do I know? But
certainly it was quiet in the room, because the device actually records all
sounds while it’s operating, so I had to turn the room’s fan off. So, to
review, in addition to a pumpkin on my forehead the room was perfectly quiet
and my subconscious knew that the
computer was listening to me.
And yet I
slept. That is, up until the moment that it decided the device had to be moved
back to where it was supposed to be, instead of the top of my head.
“THE DEVICE
IS LOOSE. REPOSITION NOW. THE DEVICE
IS LOOSE. REPOSITION
NOW. THE DEVICE
IS –“
I was
halfway out the second story bedroom window before becoming fully conscious. I
don’t know why. Maybe I thought the place was on fire. There was a dent in the
ceiling, so apparently I didn’t touch the floor on my way out.
Emily slept
through the whole thing, including me yelling “Open the pod bay doors, HAL!”
which she would have appreciated because she saw that movie.
After
getting off the windowsill and wandering in little circles for a few minutes, I
decided I’d better fix the thing, since they were billing me five hundred bucks
regardless. I repositioned it until the lady Terminator stopped screaming in my
ear, then did what men my age often do in the middle of the night: headed
downstairs for a, shall we say, rest stop.
You can
only imagine the look on the face of our dog, who heard some strange woman
yelling and now saw me stumbling past him with Alien stuck to my face.
But before
I went, I realized the computer lady was listening to every move I made, and
would actual hear me – ahem – tinkle. I never thought of myself as having a shy
bladder, but that shut down my entire urinary system. I didn’t go again for
three days.
Obviously I
survived the incident, although how many days it took off my life I’ll never
know. Maybe I’d have slept through them, anyway. At this writing I’m awaiting
the results, which I suspect will indicate I need to carry a pocket protector
with me at all times. But that’s okay: When the robot apocalypse starts, nerds
might have the best chance of surviving.
And every
time to sleep study computer nun gathers more information, that apocalypse gets
a little closer.
